The Wedding Presence
by Paul de Vries [published: http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-wedding-presence-97579/]
“Who
gives this woman to be married to this man?” asked the other minister. Her
mother and I do, I answered firmly.
From that point, I was in charge of the ceremony in the Gloriette
Garden, reminding us of God’s glory, surrounded by 200 seated family and
friends, on that stunningly scenic, sunny Saturday morning, the first day of
June, in the year of our Lord 2013. For so
very many years I had anticipated this moment, in my heart, mind and spirit. Just before our walk down the brick path, our
Chrissa had reminded me to “keep it short.”
Welcome to the
Lord’s original cathedral. The garden is
still God’s very best and favorite sanctuary.
The studding colors of stained glass windows only weakly approximate the
vibrant hues of verdant nature surrounding us here. Great things happen in gardens. Humanity was created in a garden; our Savior
resisted his last temptation in a garden; our Lord rose again, conquering death
for us, in a garden. Gardens
matter.
Now we come before
our Creator and all of you, our family and friends, as at the very
beginning—with original man, original woman, and our Creator. Today we are touching the Original; today we
are embracing the Eternal.
I
vividly felt the Spirit’s Presence as I spoke.
Family and friends, believers and non-believers, were now intensely engaged. This was a great and wonderful moment for all. Just as I hoped.
Chrissa and Jon,
the covenant commitment you are about to make with each other is both a
tremendous gift
from the eternal, living, loving Lord—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—and also a
beautiful and sacred expression of your deep love for each other. As you pledge
your vows to each other in a few minutes, and as you commit your lives to each
other, we remind you to do so in all spiritual seriousness, and with a splendid
sense of the joy of the Lord! Marriage
is a miracle every day—with both faith and forgiveness uniting and guiding you. Your marriage will elevate your dynamic,
growing relationship of faith and trust, hope and mutual support, and deeply
caring shared love. May your marriage richly
thrive for many decades, all the rest of your healthy and happy lives.
We were then ready for some music (“Breathe”), the “I will” pledges and the
Scripture readings. In addition to 1
Corinthians 13:4-8, including the “Love never fails” that Chrissa and Jon had
inscribed on their rings, Chrissa and Jon selected a literal translation of
Song of Songs 8:6-7, as Chrissa’s mother and I had selected many years before.
Hold me as a seal
to your heart;
Keep me as a
signet ring upon your finger.
For love is
stronger than death,
And the passionate
drive of love is all-consuming…
Its flames are
flashes of fire—a pure fire of the Lord.
Streams of water
cannot put it out;
Floods of water
shall never quench the fire of love.
For a few minutes,
let me share with you about TRIANGLES.
The most basic and stable relationships are triangular. In the two Bible passages that Rachel and
Maria just read, each references three elements—the two humans plus the love
that “never fails,” in 1 Corinthians 13, and the man and the woman and the
“pure fire of the Lord” that draws them together into unqualified commitment,
in the Song of Songs. Real love is both
divinely faithful and passionately consuming—always involving the Lord himself
with the two people whom he joins together.
Also, in the original Garden, the Lord joined together two of his
wonderful images—both continuing to image him and both needing each other. A perfect triangle. Some talk about protecting traditional marriage
of “one man and one woman,” but that is not the original marriage pattern, and
it does not work. What is needed is “one
God, one woman, and one man.” The
TRIANGLE is the lasting relationship.
Everything that truly
matters is triangular. Even in architecture,
it is all triangles. The square angles of building walls would not last without
diagonal cross-pieces, thus creating triangles for strength and stability. Without triangles, buildings would collapse. Both in architecture and in relationships we
may think we have other shapes—pentagons, octagons, dodecagons—but they all are
ultimately complex arrangements of simple, stable triangles.
Even before time
began, the Holy Trinity eternally thrived in the perfect relationships of what
is called “ahav” in Hebrew and “agape” in Greek—consuming,
faithful, unconditional love. That
awesome divine love, eternally sustaining the deep complexities and mysteries
of the Trinity, was also the Lord’s motivation for creating original man and
woman, and all of us. Each one of us was
truly birthed in eternal divine love, however vibrant or vain our birth
families may have been. The triangular
eternal God brings us into triangular love relationships in which he fully,
personally participates. People may
refer to adultery as a “love triangle,” but such misnomers of unfaithful
relationships are dishonors to triangles, and nothing at all about love.
Triangles
matter. Today we join you two and the
Lord—so that anyone who may try to get between you would be trying to harm or replace
the Lord himself! By his amazing grace,
the Eternal God himself is an essential and vibrant part of your
relationship. Also, you as a couple
relate to others—family, friends, future children. And in those relationships the Lord is always
present, too, whether or not the other people acknowledge him. It is always triangles: the Lord—you together—and
others, or the Lord—Jon—and Chrissa. Splendid
triangles. Thanks be to our gracious God. Amen.
Following this brief homily, there were the vows that
Jon and Chrissa wrote, the ring ceremony, the singing of “The Prayer,” the
love-letter ceremony, the pronouncement (interrupted by deafening applause and
cheers!), the closing prayer, the kiss, and the formal presentation of the
married couple, “It is now my privilege
to introduce to you Mr. and Mrs…” Next,
the reception while the photographers took dozens of pictures of the wedding
participants, the introductions in the lovely catering hall next to the
Gloriette Garden, the prayer sung, the splendid dinner eaten, the lovely dancing,
the backwards bouquet toss, and the cake consumed. After splendid hours together, most people had
then given their final hugs and trickled out to their cars.
Now
as less than three dozen family and friends remained, the newlyweds prepared
their formal departure. The remaining
two professional photographers were poised to capture this defining moment through
their professional equipment. I stood
there, within the small cluster of people, with my inexpensive, digital
snapshot camera on a simple tripod. The official,
professional photos could take weeks; I wanted to share some pictures the next
day.
The sky was clear, and the sun was intensely
bright. While waiting for Chrissa and
Jon, I took a picture of the empty brick walkway. Then as the newlyweds walked toward us, through
my lens I saw a slender beam of light as a distinct sunray shining onto the
middle of the brick path in front of them!
I snapped a second picture. Was this
the Lord himself visually confirming his awesome Presence? Was this bright beam what Scripture calls
the “Shekinah” glory, the manifest Presence of God? As Chrissa and Jon quickly walked closer, I
snapped a third picture capturing how the Shekinah beam dramatically quickly grew
in intensity, and then a fourth picture just as, through my lens, the Shekinah
glory most brightly united the newlyweds walking closely together, hand-in-hand. The Lord Jesus Christ’s Shekinah hand in
theirs! [Please see the above sequence of the four photos.] The revealing Shekinah beam then
disappeared.
Very
smart people have thoughtfully explained to me about scientific optics, my
simple camera lens, the time of day, the angle of the sun, the exact place I
set my tripod, and “lens flares.”
And
I believe them.
However, miracle is most often about the timing and the
place and the live narrative context of a rare event—as the Scriptures teach
and as Augustine also explained. The
point of the Spirit-anointed wedding homily was the Lord’s personal, grace-filled,
eternal Presence uniting Chrissa and Jon.
And then the eternal Presence chooses vividly to show himself in a
dramatic way in the final wedding pictures, June 1, 2013.
As
the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning once wisely observed,
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
I
choose to take off my shoes in respect for the Presence—and also pluck the
tasty blackberries that the Creator gives for our nourishment and pleasure. So also, Jesus is in all light, any place,
anytime; he is the light of the world. We honor him—and also utilize his wonderful
light to live, love, and learn. And yet,
at some intensely significant moments, light shines in a way that totally
rivets our attention to the Lord Jesus Christ’s eternal, constant, brilliant,
grace-filled, light-shining Presence.
Consider
this: The Shekinah glory appeared (1) near the Gloriette Garden, already
referencing God’s glory, (2) only at the exact
time of Chrissa and Jon’s last appearance before their honey-moon, (3) only
at the exact place of their final
walk, (4) only shining the very most brightly just as they walked hand-in-hand into his vivid, glowing Presence, (5)
the Shekinah beam touches their joined
hands, and (6) then disappeared, having made his point, though his continuing Presence
remains so powerful with Chrissa and Jon, (7) as the Spirit-anointed homily had
just taught as the main point. What more could we ask? What a wedding Presence!
Praise God from
whom all blessings flow… abundantly, above and beyond all that we can even ask
or think…
Paul de Vries, PhD
president of New York
Divinity School
senior pastor of
Immanuel Community Church
public philosopher
for www.ChristianPost.com
and the father of
the Bride drpaul@nydivinityschool.org.